Abstract

Pumping suspensions and pastes has always been a significant technological challenge in a number
of industrial applications ranging from food processing to mining. Peristaltic pumps have become popular to
pump and/or dose complex fluids, due to their robustness. During the transport of suspensions with peristaltic
pumps, clogging issues may arise, particularly during transient operations. That is a matter of particular concern
whenever the pumping device is used intermittently to generate flow only on demand. Further understanding
of the transient dynamics of such systems and of the conditions that can lead to jamming would result in
more robust peristaltic pump design. To achieve these goals, an experimental setup that simplifies the statorrotor
assembly of a peristaltic hose pump was used. In this setup, a roller transfers momentum to a liquid
suspension, upon application of a constant load. The evolution of the velocity of the roller was recorded for
different concentrations of mono-dispersed spheres of different diameters. The flow is found not to be strongly
dependent on the dispersed particle volume fraction, if the size of the suspended phase is comparable with
the hose diameter. Conversely, the flow is strongly slowed down when their size is small and the particle
concentration is increased. These findings could help improving the design of peristaltic pumps by a more
appropriate sizing, given the diameter of the hose and that of the particles to be transported.